US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

From the NYT "tea party can't agree, big surprise" article today:

“We can’t, as a Tea Party organization, allow anyone to speak for us,” said Lisa Esler, a Tea Party activist who opposes the bill. “That’s the lesson.”

Brilliant strategy in a democracy!

Others were mildly more huffy--in a reserved, Midwestern sort of way.

goole, that article is making me all nostalgic for the homeland of my people. Everyone in it is being quietly, politely otm...that is, if you don't mind.

that article is hilarious, I don't think I realized how much I miss that aspect of upper midwest culture

bernie's letter

http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=c1fd7f9b-abd8-4e7a-a370-1867881259d8

He's all alone on this, sadly. If only even a handful of Dems could stand beside him.

Meanwhile the House is leaving for a 4th of July weekend but is not adjourning for recess, in an effort to keep Obama from making Elizabeth Warren and others recess appointments.

only a matter of time before they swear there are weapons of mass destruction buried beneath his desk

1.3 million signatures to recall Ohio's anti-union law sb5

http://www.thenation.com/blog/161746/democracy-coming-ohio-13-million-voters-force-referendum-restore-labor-rights

oops not recall exactly but

Ohio does not have a recall provision. But it does allow citizens to force a vote on legislation recently passed by the legislature

seems pretty ridiculous but hey state politics

suck on this, teabaggers

Nice

Obama talked tough at a press conference this morning about wanted a balanced approach on the debt crisis. He did not endorse Sanders idea of balance but he did at least push for ending some tax breaks for millionaires and corporations. It's good to hear this but we'll see if it's just another bark is louder than his bite situation. Plus, does he really think the Republicans will accept this?:

from Washington Monthly :

“If you are a wealthy CEO or hedge fund manager in America right now, your taxes are lower than they’ve ever been. They’re lower than they’ve been since the 1950s. And you can afford it. You’ll still be able to ride on your corporate jet. You’ll just have to pay a little more…. My belief is that the Republican leadership in Congress will hopefully sooner rather than later come to the conclusion that they need to make the right decisions for the country, that everybody else has been willing to move off their maximalist position. They need to do the same. My expectation is that they’ll do the responsible thing.”

The phrase of the morning is “corporate-jet owner.” I started keeping count of how many times the president used the phrase, and I think I noticed four separate instances. The point was to highlight a $3 billion perk available to those who buy these jets — a perk Republicans won’t touch because it would count as a (cue scary music) tax increase.

wanting a balanced approach

The first excerpt is from Obama and the second is from Steve Benen of Washington Monthly

goddamn corporate jet owners

here we go guys

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-you-know-the-negotiations-have-truly-failed/2011/05/19/AG13r5qH_blog.html

The best advice I’ve gotten for assessing the debt-ceiling negotiations was to “watch for the day when the White House goes public.” As long as the Obama administration was refusing to attack Republicans publicly, my source said, they believed they could cut a deal. And that held true. They were quiet when the negotiations were going on. They were restrained after Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl walked out last week. Press Secretary Jay Carney simply said, “We are confident that we can continue to seek common ground and that we will achieve a balanced approach to deficit reduction.” But today they went public. The negotiations have failed.

“The primary goal of President Obama’s presser, which just wrapped up, was obvious,” writes Greg Sargent. “He was clearly out to pick a major public fight with Republicans over tax cuts for the rich.” That’s exactly right. But he didn’t want this fight. He wanted a deal. And he wasn’t able to get one that the White House considered even minimally acceptable. After putting more than $2 trillion of spending cuts on the table, they weren’t even able to get $400 billion — about a sixth of the total — in tax increases.

http://www.unconditionalconfidence.com/mt/mt-static/FCKeditor/UserFiles/Image/nervous.gif

That's why I didn't criticize him for staying out of the NYC marriage debate! Endorsing the legislation would have killed any chances of GOP support.

“He was clearly out to pick a major public fight with Republicans over tax cuts for the rich.”

Giv'em hell Barry

The public's on his side if chooses the words carefully.

^^^

yep. Klein's OTM I think. this is gonna get ugly, but I'm glad Obama didn't cave.

some insane political brinksmanship going on here, polling data and economic realities are in Obama's favor tho I think

Picking a fight at a Wednesday morning press conference is not bad, but remember when Presidents use to hold them at night? Can Obama stay strong on this is the question. He will probably settle for a package with less than 17% on the revenue side, when in years past the 50/50 ratio Sanders wants was considered mainstream. But will Republicans agree to anything on the revenue side?

Someone posted something along these lines a long time ago, but the chamber of commerce types are the true GOP daddies and there's no fucking way they'll let the US default on its debts..

they're also the ones whose taxes will tick upward slightly if a deal on obama's terms is accepted...

a default will, if it happens, have many of the same effects of slashing the safety net directly. it'll primarily hurt the lives of those who are more closely dependent on the health of the public sector, which basically includes everyone except your megarich CoC types. ruining the ability of the public sector to borrow on favorable terms is kind of their goal anyway? i'm not so sure i see a way out of this. maybe mike konczal got in my brain.

The Republicans have turned into a petrified ideological shell w/little intellectual honesty and their partisan supporters should be told to put down their flags 'cause despite their protests they can objectively be shown to prize certain things more than the Republic, namely an attachment to classic liberal economic theory (wed to its fearful moralism) that shows they either haven't understood much of the 20th century or that they find greater stability, sustainable growth and nuanced views on the functioning of the economy that take into account costs that Ricardo never saw as morally suspect. They should be repeatedly kicked in the nuts. Every time they call someone a 'socialist' they should be called childish or actually told to stfu and make an argument based on facts and not on paranoid delusions and that pandering to puerile talking points just makes them sound like children. What was Ickes famous line? I always loved it. It was something like, when asked if he was going to listen to Wilkie's speech, he responded that if he wanted to hear a baby cry, he could go home and hear his own kids.

CoC types won't want this but Norquist will love it. When even ppl like the Bachmanns are getting lots of money from the gov and then they don't, a large part of the electorate will either vote against the Republican leadership or abstain.

basically rich fucks are currently analyzing which scenario is worse for them, higher taxes or debt default, and this will dictate how the GOP goes. Hard to say how that will shake out.

xp

They should be repeatedly kicked in the nuts.

can't be said enough really

I know it's lame to announce stuff like this, but Michael White I always enjoy your posts, esp on this thread. Could say that about lots of others on this thread, even (and particularly) those I disagree with

You're welcome!

*chugs*

Sorry, ill-advised post-happy hour "I love you guys" style post!

http://spencerackerman.typepad.com/attackerman/2011/06/the-white-house-counterterrorism-strategy-sort-of-blows.html

never liked john brennan!

people who work in politics are horrible

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/13/lisa-baron-s-salacious-memoir.html

yikes

"When people find out that I worked for Ralph Reed during the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, they always ask the same thing: Was it true Ralph told voters that Senator John McCain fathered a black child?" she writes. "And my answer is always the same, 'How would I know? I was in a Greenville hotel room giving Ari Fleischer a blow job.'"

^^^ Henry James would kill for this opening sentence.

I'm also thinking about the kind of mouth that would receive Ari Fleischer's dick.

big deal, ari fleischer fucked us all in the face

amirite

x-post from yesterday

The point was to highlight a $3 billion perk available to those who buy these jets — a perk Republicans won’t touch because it would count as a (cue scary music) tax increase.

There's been some nitpicking of this item--some Republicans are claiming this deduction was part of something that Dems created and others are suggesting that is only a minor part of the deficit. Neither of those points is really much of a defense of keeping this item.

love sullivan's fierce line on gop dogma and obstruction

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/boehners-economic-terrorism.html

"That's the nature of today's GOP. It needs to be destroyed before it can recover."

damn!

The second option is to bypass them, invoke the 14th Amendment, and order the Treasury to keep paying its debts

wait waht

like, how does that work

desperation

no I mean I don't understand what the 14th Amendment has to do with superceding Congress and the President "ordering" the Treasury to do anything.

also lol

Well, read the link:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/04/29/The-Debt-Limit-Option-President-Obama-Can-Use.aspx

Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that the debt limit is statutory law, which is trumped by the Constitution which has a little known provision that relates to this issue. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” This could easily justify the sort of extraordinary presidential action to avoid default that I am suggesting.

Some will raise a concern that potential buyers of Treasury securities may be scared off by a fear that bonds sold over the debt limit may not be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. However, given that the vast bulk of Treasury securities are 3-month bills that will turn over many, many times before this issue ever reaches the Supreme Court, it is doubtful than anyone will be concerned about that. And the Federal Reserve could assure investors that it will always be a buyer for such securities.

People smarter than I am tell me that the Treasury has an almost infinite ability to avoid a debt crisis. I hope they are right. But I am hypothesizing a situation in which the Treasury reaches the end of its rope and a day comes when it needs $X billion to pay interest and it has less than $X billion in cash. Under those circumstances, when default is the only possible alternative, I believe that the president and the Treasury secretary would be justified in taking extraordinary action to prevent it, even if it means violating the debt limit.

Constitutional history is replete with examples where presidents justified extraordinary actions by extraordinary circumstances. During the George W. Bush administration many Republicans defended the most expansive possible reading of the president’s powers, especially concerning national security. Since default on the debt would clearly have dire consequences for our relations with China, Japan and other large holders of Treasury securities, it’s hard to see how defenders of Bush’s policies would now say the president must stand by and do nothing when a debt default poses an imminent national security threat.

Given that the Supreme Court in recent years has been unusually deferential to executive prerogatives –I feel certain President Obama would be on firm constitutional ground should he challenge the debt limit in order to prevent a debt default. Should the Court rule in his favor, the debt limit would effectively become a dead letter. Is that really the outcome Republicans want from a debt limit showdown?

Etc. etc.

I don't understand what the 14th Amendment has to do with superceding Congress...

Shakey, the way it works is, Obama must call up Boehner at midnight and shout "I call fourteensies!" before Boehner can shout "I block fourteensies!" Then Obama has fourteen days during which he may bribe every member of the Supreme Court with cream-filled pastries and bags of T-Bills. If, at the end of that time the Supreme Court Justices have not absconded to the Bahamas, a ruling is issued that states "Boehner is a poopyhead".